


the cuddle trilogy

by arielmagicesi



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hugs, Kissing, M/M, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 03:26:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9415997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arielmagicesi/pseuds/arielmagicesi
Summary: It's not really a trilogy, I'm just referencing a tweet Maggie made. This is about the different TRC characters receiving the hugs and physical intimacy they need in life. Might jump around time-wise but I won't go much earlier than BLLB and too much later than the TRK epilogue. I'll add different relationship and character tags as they come up.





	

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adam has some self-deprecating thoughts in this, just a warning. I don't think those things are true about Adam but he does :( also the Pynch at the end is thanks to lydia-st-james haha

Scrying was decidedly exhausting.

Adam collapsed on the Fox Way couch, having been bent over a glass salad bowl for the past five minutes. Persephone had gently woken him from his trance, and he’d shuddered, eyes scrunched shut, and curled into the cushions.

“What did you see?” Persephone asked. Her voice’s tone didn’t waver. There he was, in the fetal position, cowering and pathetic, and she was speaking as though nothing was wrong.

Adam took deep breaths. The horror sleeping somewhere in Cabeswater was a new sort of horror to him, but horror was not new to him. His mind was not unfamiliar with the act of diving into a pool of horrors at the wrong moment. He was not unfamiliar with pretending he was fine.

He sat up.

“I think I saw the third sleeper,” he said, voice only minimally shaky.

“What in particular?” Persephone said. “Tell me what you saw, and then tell me what you felt.”

The first part, at least, was a scientific approach. Adam could present a list of observations. That was something to ground him.

“I saw teeth,” he said. “They weren’t exactly teeth but they were the sort of thing that eats. And they were waiting. I also s-saw-”

No no no he didn’t want to say it.

“Saw?” Persephone said.

She was sitting on the couch next to him. Her voice still did not waver.

“Hands,” he said. He clenched his own hands into fists. “It wants… hands. It wants to grab at things and destroy them.”

“What things?”

Adam’s nails bit into the palms of his hands.

“Us?” he said, and the tears in his voice were fighting to get out.

 _Breathe. Breathe. Make your mind blank_. If he made his mind blank, then things would rush in again. Maybe it was best if he thought of random things, homework, college applications, fixing that sound his engine was making. Persephone was still watching him. He was embarrassing himself.

_You’re embarrassing yourself, Adam._

“You mean you and the others,” Persephone was saying. “Gansey.”

She was far away.

Moss was rushing in. In Cabeswater, the sun was like a warm blanket. Here in the living room, it was awful like incense in a fireplace but out there, it was sunlit and open. September was rising, and the trees made strong roots and promising seeds.

“Adam,” Persephone was saying. Her voice had become a little awestruck.

Adam opened his eyes. There were tears spilling out of them, but he felt quiet. Around his shoulders there were ivy leaves crawling, intertwined with moss, tight enough to hold him but not so tight that they hurt.

Persephone lifted her hand and looked at Adam with a question in her eyes. He nodded, and she ran her fingers, worn and soft, over the leaves.

“You must have been frightened,” she said quietly. “You must be so alone… For the forest to reach like this. Cabeswater must love you a lot, Adam.”

Adam didn’t deny any of it. In front of Persephone, it was difficult to lie.

Tears were still streaming down his face. He looked down at his hands, which had relaxed, and opened them to look at his palms.

Then Persephone, startlingly, hugged Adam.

He was very unused to physical touch. Fist-bumps with Gansey, the bare sparking touches with Blue, fierce sudden touches from Ronan or occasionally Noah, and the rest was violence and banal nothings from his mother.

Persephone was not very warm and not even very soft, but alternately she was very warm and very soft. It was strange. She was not his mother or aunt or grandmother. He wondered if this was appropriate.

She pulled back. Adam realized he’d been frozen.

“Are you OK?” she asked.

“I…” he said.

He looked down at his hands again.

“I don’t know.”

He wanted a hug. It was the sort of feeling he’d learned to repress a long time ago, and now it was resurfacing. He didn’t know how to tell Persephone that she could try again if she wanted. He wished it had been his mother. He didn’t even like his mother, but he wished it had been her.

“Here,” Persephone said, as if she could read minds- well- she _could_ , in some ways- and hugged Adam again. This time, he let his shoulders fall.

The moss disappeared like wind.

She held him very close, and there was a little of Blue in it- like this was where Blue got some of it, the flame of caring that sparked up into a fire when necessary. Adam tentatively, awkwardly hugged her back.

“You’re a child,” Persephone said, as if she was just realizing this. “It- it- we’re here for you, you know. All of us. You can trust me, you can trust any of us.”

Adam nodded. He didn’t really trust himself to speak.

“It’s OK to cry, too,” she said. “It’s a normal reaction. Scrying isn’t easy for anyone, you know.”

He didn’t want tears to get on her sweater.

“Adam, you can cry if you need to,” Persephone said. “It isn’t weak, I promise. And I’m right here. It’s OK.”

When he started crying again, he swam back into himself, and the knot in his stomach was real again and the memories were sharp. But Persephone was right there, and the house was around him, and the real things in his life were not just pain.

“Shh,” she said quietly, like a mother might. “It’s OK.”

Adam was shaking, just a little, but it was warm and he hadn’t really realized how much he’d missed by barely receiving any hugs from anyone. He was so tired of carrying his own weight. It was so nice and quiet to just let himself be held.

“I’m sorry,” Persephone said.

“Sorry for what?” Adam asked.

Persephone squeezed Adam’s shoulders and pulled back.

“This is so much,” she said. “For one person to handle. And we haven’t been much help.”

“I chose this,” Adam said, sitting up taller.

“I know you chose this. You choose a lot of things, but they’re still difficult. You deserve to rest sometimes, to not have to hold it all together.”

Adam bit his lip. Coming from Persephone, it didn’t sound condescending- it just sounded like another one of her lessons, like she was explaining how to choose the right tarot card or what kind of tea enhanced second sight.

“Thanks,” he stammered out, because he wasn’t sure what else to say, and then he reached to wrap his arms around Persephone again. She hugged him back.

“I think that’s enough for today,” she said. “Come back on Friday, tell me if Cabeswater does anything strange. Certainly tell me right away if you get any hint of Maura.”

“I will,” Adam said.

 

~two months later~

 

It was stupid to go to work so soon after everything that had happened. Adam knew that and he’d gone anyway, because it was worse for him to skip work than it was to find himself, hands shaking, wrench dropping on the floor, in the middle of the auto shop, remembering how he’d seen Gansey fall lifeless in Blue’s arms. He felt like things were crawling up his throat. He was going to throw up.

After an unproductive shift, he called out sick from his night job at the warehouse. For the third time this week. His manager didn’t make it much of a secret that this wasn’t good, but Adam couldn’t take it anymore. He felt like he would fall apart if he was alone in that warehouse with only his hands and his eyes.

And nothing but phantoms of memory.

He drove to Monmouth. His car couldn’t go as fast as he wanted. What he wanted was to be with someone else and quite frankly, anyone would have been fine, even one of the women at Fox Way or one of his irritating classmates, but he wanted someone who would hold him, who wouldn’t find it weird. Anyone else would have found it weird. It was one thing to hold each other and cry right after narrowly escaping demons; it was another thing to demand something like that from a platonic friend on a Friday afternoon.

No one really wanted to hold Adam, but he figured Ronan would be OK with it, considering how much of it they’d managed to fit in over the past week.

He burst in the door of Monmouth a little too eagerly, and Gansey, who was at his desk, startled.

“Adam!” he said, face lighting up.

“Hey,” Adam said hurriedly. “Do you know where Ronan is?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s in his room,” Gansey said. “Listening to his headphones at deafening volumes, most likely.”

“Great,” Adam said, and started heading to Ronan’s room.

“I take it things are going well between you two?” Gansey said.

Adam turned around.

“Whatever,” he replied.

Gansey was clearly smiling and Adam felt himself smiling too.

“I’m happy for you,” Gansey said.

Adam felt like Gansey wanted to start a conversation about this, which he wasn’t thrilled about, but it would be better to get it over with so he could go see Ronan.

“Uh, thanks,” he said.

“I know,” Gansey continued, “that I seemed sort of- well- I didn’t seem enthusiastic about it when you first told me, I don’t know. But I _am_ happy for you. I care about you two so much. I was so worried that night-”

“-that I’d hurt him, I know,” Adam said.

“No,” Gansey said, and the harshness of his voice made Adam’s eyes widen. “No. It came out like that but that wasn’t what worried me. I was worried that I would die and you would be left alone. That everything- that- I didn’t want either of you to be hurt. I was just so afraid and I didn’t want to tell you that I knew I was going to die, because I didn’t want you to worry, and so instead I tried to fix it beforehand and I only wanted you to be happy. Oh, none of this is coming out right, I’m sorry.”

Adam stared at Gansey, overwhelmed by some sort of strange feeling that he couldn’t place, and then he placed some of it: the need to run over and hug him.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said instead. “I-”

“You don’t have to say you’re sorry,” Gansey said.

“Just let me talk, Gansey, Jesus. I mean I’m sorry about everything that happened. I know it’s not my fault, but I wish we’d been there for you more.”

“You _were_ there for me,” Gansey said. “You were there for me the whole time and I didn’t realize.”

“I wish you had. We’re your friends, Gansey. We care about you. And-” Adam could see tears glistening in Gansey’s eyes and he could feel them in the pit of his own chest. “I’m really glad you’re alive.”

Gansey got up, suddenly, and walked over and then he grabbed Adam and held him close.

Adam froze for a second, surprised and slightly worried, and then, tired, he let his head fall onto Gansey’s shoulder and hug him back.

He’d needed this. Not just the physical contact but the conversation, the closure on everything. It wasn’t closure on everything but it was- it was more like opening. Letting there be more space to talk between them. They’d both changed a lot for the better.

Gansey let him go, and Adam took a breath.

“Thanks,” he said, a little awkwardly.

Gansey wiped his eyes.

“Thank you too,” he said. “I- I did promise Blue I would call her tonight, and I imagine you want to go and see Ronan.”

“Uh, yeah,” Adam said. “Yeah.”

He knocked on Ronan’s door, though he knew there was no point, and then he walked in carefully.

Ronan was sitting on the bed, legs sprawled out, head leaned back with his eyes closed, and his headphones on blaring to the point that Adam could hear his shitty music. Adam closed the door behind him.

Adam walked over and tapped his shoulder. Ronan jumped, his eyes startling open, and then relaxed when he saw Adam.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered, and took off his headphones.

“Hey,” Adam said.

“Don’t you have homework or some shit to do?” Ronan said. He was very carefully wearing a nonchalant expression.

“Actually, I’m supposed to be heading to the warehouse, but I called out sick.”

“Oh,” Ronan said. “Are you sick? Or are you finally skipping work to help destroy capitalism like I suggested?”

“A terrible suggestion, which I told you when you first said it,” Adam said. “And no. I’m just… tired.”

Ronan’s face softened a little.

“You can sit down, then,” he said.

Adam sat down next to Ronan against the headboard. Ronan was sitting a little stiffly beside him- he was usually awkward whenever Adam tried to initiate anything vaguely romantic or physical, even though at this point they’d been together a week. Yeah, it was a week now. Which was probably a short amount of time but it felt like ages. And it felt different for them. The way they knew each other.

He leaned into Ronan, sliding his arm behind Ronan’s back, and letting his head nestle in Ronan’s neck.

Ronan let out a breath and then put his arm around Adam’s shoulder.

“You can stay for however long you want,” he said.

“Good,” Adam said, breathing in Ronan’s scent, which he’d found was incredibly calming. His heartbeat was already slowing, even though his whole chest was growing warm. He leaned in even closer and kissed Ronan’s neck. Ronan inhaled sharply.

“Fuck,” he said.

Adam kissed at Ronan’s neck again, letting himself get immersed in the task, listening to Ronan’s uneven breathing and occasional cursing and enjoying every feeling that washed over him. This was almost too good.

“God, Adam,” Ronan said. “Just- ugh-”

“You OK?” Adam murmured.

“Yeah, I might fucking- Christ- pass out if you keep going-”

Adam stopped and pulled back.

“Sorry,” he said, breathing a little heavily.

“Don’t apologize,” Ronan said. He leaned back and caught his breath. “Just… _fuck_. God, I must seem like a fucking loser.”

“Never heard you say anything so self-deprecating,” Adam said. “Where’s the trademark Lynch ego?”

“Ha ha fucking ha,” Ronan said.

He did look insecure, actually, and Adam felt bad, though he didn’t know why.

“Well, you don’t seem like a loser,” he said. “I mean. You _normally_ do but not just then. Why’d you think you were?”

“I dunno,” Ronan said. “You know how to do all this shit.”

“All what shit?”

“ _You_ know.”

“Are you trying to insinuate sex? What are you, twelve?”

“Fuck, no- I mean- kind of, whatever. I guess you did all this shit when you were twelve.”

“If you’re trying to say I lost my virginity when I was twelve, then no, I didn’t. That would be fucked up. I mean, I-” Adam turned a little red. “I haven’t- I mean- done it either.”

“Yeah, but you’ve still been with other people. You’re used to all of this.”

Adam studied Ronan’s expression. He looked embarrassed, which was kind of adorable on him, considering he didn’t have much shame. Adam liked how his face looked when he was blushing.

“Do you think I’m gonna judge you for never having kissed anyone before?” Adam said. “I don’t give a shit. Come on. You’re not so bad at it, anyway.”

“Not so bad, huh?” Ronan said, grinning again, and Adam rolled his eyes. He leaned in and kissed Ronan, soft and slow.

He pulled back and said, “Yeah, not too terrible.”

Ronan laughed quietly.

“And,” Adam added, “I’m not used to this. Just because I dated a couple girls before doesn’t mean I’m used to this. You’re different.”

“Well, yeah, I can think of one big difference between me and your ex-girlfriends.”

“Asshole. It’s not just that. It’s- you- I don’t know, it’s different.”

Ronan’s eyebrows were close over his eyes, and Adam felt a little overwhelmed by them. In a good way. He brought his hand up to Ronan’s cheek.

Ronan let out a ragged sigh.

“Well, you’re handling it a lot better than me,” he said. “You’re better at this.”

“I’m better than you at a lot of things,” Adam said.

Ronan glared at him. Adam smiled.

“I don’t mind you taking your time to figure it out,” he added, and then leaned in to kiss Ronan again.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! You can also reach on me on Twitter at @ArielKalati and Tumblr at arielmagicesi.


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